Abundance and Want

From the Sounds of St. Francis, 12 October, 2017

We are now into the third week of Stewardship-Tide at Saint Francis, when we are asking you to consider your financial support for the ministry of our parish in 2018.  Our vestry will also need to decide on a pledge in the next few months, how much we plan to contribute to the ministry of our diocese in the coming year. With God’s help, both pledges will increase, so that together we may all be more faithful and effective in serving Christ and sharing His Gospel.  

The pledge we make to the diocese, like the gift you make to Saint Francis, testifies to the fact that our faith is communal, that a relationship with Jesus draws us into mutual dependence on other brothers and sisters.  Because we follow the apostolic model of church governance, we must have a bishop, our chief teacher and minister of those sacraments that connect us with the universal body of believers.  Our gift to the diocese first supports her ministry.  

Plenteousness: A Sermon for Pentecost 9

“He distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted.”

St. John 6:11

It didn’t take us long to see that Big Jim wasn’t like any other horse in the barn.  He was several hands taller than the quarter horses, to begin with, and he ate an awful lot more.  And he was our only horse with a glorious past.  Big Jim arrived at our small farm through the auspices of Fred Goody, one of my father’s more eccentric friends.[1]  Fred was from the mountains of West Virginia, and had an astounding number of connections.  Besides Big Jim, he brought us a coon dog and some rather odd pieces of furniture.  You didn’t ask too many questions about Fred’s procurements, but we were given to understand that Big Jim was a thoroughbred, who had once been an item on the racetrack at Charles Town.  His glory days were behind him, and our place was the stop that kept him from the glue factory. 

For a thoroughbred, Big Jim was a remarkably calm and good natured animal, and I had no trouble catching him for his feedings every day.  But after he’d been with us a few months, and had put on a few pounds, we out for a family ride on a Sunday afternoon.  Dad was riding Big Jim, and we emerged from the woods into a long clearing.  Dad wasn’t sure what the signal was, maybe something the horse heard or the way dad shifted in the saddle.  But in an instant, it was as if Big Jim was rounding the final turn at Charles Town, the crowd cheering and the flags waving.  He sprang into action, his muscles churning, his neck thrust forward.  None of us had ever seen a horse move like that in our back field.  Dad said it was the ride of his life, that it was like Jim was flying through the air.  He would be leaning back a bit further in the saddle from then on, just in case Big Jim had a mind to relive old memories again.